The present invention relates to an attitude controlling system for vehicle-supported equipments which is capable of automatically locating a seat, steering operation member, etc. on a vehicle into a position where it is easy to drive during travel, or a position where one can easily get on and off the vehicle upon boarding and alighting.
In vehicles, a driver's seat, steering wheel, etc. are generally designed to be freely adjustable in their positions so that a driver of the vehicle may readily perform all of the required driving operations during travel. Usually, the driver's seat, steering wheel, etc. are set to have an attitude fit for driving. Specifically, during travel, the driver's seat and the steering wheel are located leaving a space only required for the driver to move his hands and legs. If left as they are, therefore, the steering wheel and a seat back obstruct the driver in getting on and off the vehicle, with the result that he can board and alight only with an unnatural pose.
For this reason, it is desirous that a tilt mechanism and a telescopic mechanism for the steering operation member are electrically automated to locate the steering operation member in a retreat position upon boarding and alighting, or a predetermined driving position during travel.
To automate such locating operations, the status of respective parts in an automobile must be monitored to detect a behavior of the driver and then judge whether the driver is about to board/alight or drive. Opening/closing of a door, turn-on/-off of an ignition key, etc. are available for detecting such status.
However, a switch adapted to detect opening/closing of the door, turn-on/-off of the ignition key, etc. may possibly malfunction. Also, the door, the ignition key, etc. are sometimes erroenously set into an unintended state. Should the switch for such detection purpose malfunction due to a failure, failed contact or vibrations, there is a fear that the steering wheel, etc. would be retracted to a position for boarding and alighting even while the vehicle is traveling. When the steering wheel is set to have an attitude corresponding to its retreat position, it would become very difficult for the driver to continue driving. In superhighways, for example, the driver can not stop the vehicle immediately even under such a situation and this is very dangerous.
Furthermore, in case that the vehicle-supported equipment are located into a position for boarding/alighting or a position for driving in response to the opened/closed status of the door, if the attitude setting is effected after detection, the driver must wait for a while until he is actually permitted to alight, for example, because the driver is already about to get off the vehicle when the door has been opened. Particularly, in case of adjusting a plurality of attitudes, these plural attitudes can not be adjusted simultaneously from the point of reducing the load on a vehicle-mounted battery, with the result that the attitude setting takes a longer time.